Field devices are used in a variety of process installations to provide extremely important process monitoring and control functions. Examples of process installations include petroleum, pharmaceutical, chemical, pulp, and other fluid processing installations. In such installations, the process control and measurement network may include tens or even hundreds of various field devices that periodically require maintenance to ensure that such devices are functioning properly and/or calibrated. Moreover, when one or more errors in the process control and measurement installation are detected, the use of a handheld field maintenance tool allows a technician to quickly diagnose such errors in the field. Handheld field maintenance tools are generally used to configure, calibrate, and diagnose problems relative to intelligent field devices using digital process communication protocols.
Since at least some process installations may involve highly volatile, or even explosive, environments, it is often beneficial, or even required, for field devices and the handheld field maintenance tools used with such field devices to comply with Intrinsic Safety requirements. These requirements help ensure that compliant electrical devices will not generate a source of ignition even under fault conditions. One example of an Intrinsic Safety requirement is set forth in: APPROVAL STANDARD INTRINSICALLY SAFE APPARATUS AND ASSOCIATED APPARATUS FOR USE IN CLASS I, II, and III, DIVISION NUMBER 1 HAZARDOUS (CLASSIFIED) LOCATIONS, CLASS NUMBER 3610, promulgated by Factory Mutual Research October, 1998. An example of a handheld field maintenance tool that complies with Intrinsic Safety requirements includes that sold under the trade designation Model 475 Field Communicator, available from Emerson Process Management of Austin, Tex.
While intelligent field devices and handheld field maintenance devices have provided a variety of new functions and capabilities with respect to handheld field maintenance, some functions are still somewhat cumbersome. For example, the task of commissioning field devices (connecting them for the first time) for a process control system is typically a two-person operation. One person is out in the field connecting the field device and the other person is in the control room monitoring the control system display or displays to see if the connections are successful. Proving a system and method that could transform heretofore two-person field maintenance tasks to single-person tasks would facilitate handheld field maintenance. Moreover, such a system could also generally provide enhanced interaction with the process control system itself.